Energy generation is a worldwide concern in terms of its impact within the environmental sector. The elaboration of a new energy strategy that combats climate change is becoming an urgent need. Nuclear fusion is presented as a promising technology in the achievement of sustainable energy development.

In the road to achieving fusion energy production at a commercial level, China has proposed the design of a nuclear fusion reactor, based on the tokamak configuration. Aimed to produce self-sustained burning plasma and a closed tritium breeding cycle, this device is expected to provide a bridge between ITER and DEMO designs.

The Breeding Blanket is one of the key technological challenges to be designed in order to guarantee sufficient tritium production, heat removal capabilities and radiation shielding protection. Two preliminary designs of the Helium-Cooled Ceramic Breeder (HCCB) have been suggested to be subjected to further investigation. Despite the fact that both designs use the same materials, they present completely different geometrical arrangements. In the present analysis, these two concepts of the HCCB are examined, addressing the critical design issues that affect the performance of the system.

Given that this reactor´s design conditions state that a Tritium Breeding Ratio (TBR) higher than 1.2 must be obtained for the proper production of a closed tritium breeding cycle, a preliminary neutronic study of the reactor is performed to establish the heat distribution along the Tritium Breeding Module (TBM). The first wall is configured with a layer of a protection material due to the high neutron irradiation to which it´s subjected during reactor operation. The influence of the thickness of the tungsten layer in the first wall of the HCCB blanket is evaluated comprehensively and the results show the high impact on the tritium production performance.

Using a Computational Fluid Dynamic software, the cooling capacity of the reactor is analysed considering the data given by the blanket that is subjected to the higher heat load. By changing the relative distances between the components inside the blanket, an optimum structural configuration design is obtained.

A comparison between both structural designs is accomplished in this paper, aiming to understand the optimal design configuration to assure tritium self-sufficiency. Results prove that there are interdependencies between the sections of the different materials and that such changes are influenced by the geometrical dimensions inside the structure. Valuable conclusions can be extracted from the results of this work, which can be referenced for investigations regarding further studies of HCCB blankets.


Optimal Design for Helium Cooled Solid Breeder Blanket of CFETR

Division / Sponsors: 
Power Division & Nuclear Engineering Division (NED)

Power Conference
Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/POWER/POWER2020/volume/83747

International Conference on Nuclear Engineering
Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ICONE/ICONE2020/volume/83761

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